REVIEW: ‘Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection’
Image: Installation View: Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, May 24, 2019 – Jan. 12, 2020. Photo: David Heald © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
Closing Jan. 12 is the comprehensive and multilayered exhibition Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection. For this first-of-its-kind show at the Guggenheim on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, six well-known artists were tasked with the job of poring over the museum’s extensive collection and finding objects to display along the swirling inner-hallway of the iconic Frank Lloyd Wright building.
What these artists produce is both varied and telling, speaking to their individual styles and concerns, while also highlighting the many different objects, both modern and contemporary, in the Guggenheim’s storehouse. The contributing curators are Cai Guo-Qiang, Paul Chan, Jenny Holzer, Julie Mehretu, Richard Prince and Carrie Mae Weems, according to press notes.
Cai starts the exhibition with a curved room featuring a great number of paintings and pieces hung along the wall, salon style. It requires viewers to pick up a helpful identification guide to see who created which piece, although there is great fun in simply exploring the work on the wall with no subtext or provenance known. It may come as a surprise, even to the aficionados, that Vasily Kadinksy, Mark Rothko and Piet Mondrian are represented on the wall. These works come from a period of time in the artists’ career when they had not yet reached their peak period of painting.
It’s only fitting that this first of six offerings is introductory in nature, showcasing these talented artists as they were yearning to find their form, striving to figure out what they had to tell the world. Later offerings in Artistic License are more sure and confident, even political and message-filled, while Cai’s salon arrangement is an interesting amalgam focused more on style and technique.
One of the highlights is the ghostly darkness of Rudolf Bauer’s “Colour Sketch” from 1936. The charcoal and pastel on paper features a man bent over and looking in a large bag. Most of his face is obscured, and the folds in his coat speak to the weather and dreariness of the surroundings. Bauer’s nearby “Promenade” strikes a much more colorful, vibrant note.
Cai’s own “White Camellia” from 1982 is also featured, along with a few other strategically placed works from the guest curator. This flower painting is given a noticeable texture by the oil and paperboard materials, which leave a roughness and depth to the still life. Cai’s “A View of a Fishing Village” from 1980 features a colorful assortment of buildings along a sandy beach. The yellows pop almost as much as the red roof in the distance. Topically, this work from Cai matches the same serenity of Joan Miró’s “Prades, the Village” from summer 1917, which depicts a wavy landscape with a church in the distance.
On level two, Chan focuses on water as a theme, and directly or indirectly the sustenance of life is featured in each selected piece. Even the carpet of this section of the hallway is blue, adding to the atmosphere of wave-length contemplation. In many of the pieces, Chan investigates bathing, a common subject in a painter’s oeuvre.
One of the most striking additions is Lawrence Weiner’s prominent “TO THE SEA / ON THE SEA / FROM THE SEA / AT THE SEA / BORDERING THE SEA,” which utilizes large text to display its thought-inducing messaging (Weiner is featured elsewhere in the show as well). Laurie Simmons’ “First Bathroom / Woman Kneeling” from 1978 is simultaneously eerie and comforting, featuring photos of doll-size renderings of house and bathroom interiors. It takes close inspection to see the detail in these photographed diorama displays.
There’s something transfixing about Mondrian’s “Summer, Dune in Zealand” from 1910. The relatively large oil on canvas appears to show a dune, but its use of blue and yellow render the sandy hilltop in an almost UV glow, as if the dune has been x-rayed or is being viewed through night goggles.
George Platt Lynes’ two photographs in this section are sensual and performative, with two male subjects posing for the lens. One is of Herbert Bliss of the New York City Ballet, with his image reflected in a mirror dripping with water, and the other is a nude lounging beneath a tree.
Fernand Léger’s “Starfish” from 1942 is a highlight, with the blue starfish prominently displayed in the center of the canvas and human bodies circulating the image in the background. There’s a wonderful layering to the painting, providing both depth and chaos, motion and abstraction.
Prince curates the third level of the six-level show. The sculptures and paintings on display provide an introspective look into Prince’s interests and the evident variety of the Guggenheim collection. Press notes indicate that he was most interested in exploring abstract examples from the 1940s and 1950s.
One of the pieces that stands out is Claire Falkenstein’s wood sculpture “Set Structure With Cylinders” from 1944. Three pegs stick out from an assortment of stained wood, making for an object both abstract and simple, able to be understood and yet asking for introspection.
Paul Jenkins’ “The Prophecy” from 1956 has a central image of apocalyptic doom shrouded by white marks that seem to drip and glisten. There’s also a piece that was previously attributed to Jackson Pollock, featuring the characteristic frenzy of his drip, drip, drip style. An actual Pollock, “Number 18,” is also featured, and the work stands out because of the painter’s restraint when it came to his dizzying display of paint. There is a centrality to his drips in this painting — a centrality that leaves the borders largely untouched.
Julie Mehretu’s section is called “Cry Gold and See Black” and looks at “expression across cultural boundaries” in the post-WWII years. Her title is taken from an evocative and haunting piece called “Close Your Eyes and See Black” from 1969. David Hammons’ work features pigment on gold-coated paperboard and depicts a person holding his head in his hands, all framed by a large outline of what appears to be another figure’s shadowy image.
Matta’s “Each And” from 1947 is large in scale and chaotic in scope. The abstract figures in the painting are interlocked and have prominent features, like exaggerated fingers and what appears to be a rib cage. The artist is also represented with “Years of Fear” from 1941.
The “Karl Marx” painting from Cecilia Vicuña is fun in its direct portraiture style, and the simultaneous circular and rectangular nature of Yuko Nasaka’s “Untitled” from 1963 almost gives the impression of capturing 30 record players lined up next to one another and at various states of play.
Carrie Mae Weems’ “What Could Have Been” section of Artistic License is built around a black-and-white palette, according to press notes, and is meant to signify the biases found in the Guggenheim’s collection (and the collections of most western art institutions). This self-critical thesis, which is encouraged to be displayed and considered, gives the show more weight, more seriousness and more honesty.
Beuys’ “Virgin” from 1979 is a clever assemblage of table, chair and light bulb. Yayoi Kusama’s “No. 2. J.B.” from 1960 utilizes not only oil paint but also rice blossoms, an interesting material to create a rather large canvas. Robert Morris’ “Untitled (Black Felt)” from 1969 is a sculptural piece of six large felt pieces artfully and precisely aligned against a wall, with the middle section of each piece pulled high, almost like it’s being transported to the sky.
Alberto Giacometti’s “The Nose” from 1949 (cast in 1964) has a sculptural head inside a box, and the head, to be expected, has a large, prominent nose. Taken together, the nose, head and neck give the figure an almost pistol quality, with the open mouth being the trigger.
Dieter Appelt’s “Die Befreiung der Finger,” or “Liberation of the Fingers,” from 1977-1979 features images of hands wrapped in tape, almost mummified, and there’s a gradual freeing of the fingers. The Lynes’ photographs are quite interesting (“Robert Hassa” and “Frederick Ashton With Dancers”), and there’s a fun candidness in the photography of Malick Sidibé (“Nuit de Noël,” “Soirée Mariage Drissa Ballo” and “Je Suis Fou Des Disques, 3 Novembre 1973”).
The top ramp of the circular hallway is curated by Holzer and features works exclusively by women, again calling to mind the art world’s issues with exclusion over the years. Holzer’s selections are a nice capstone to a wondrous walk through history and perspective.
Louise Nevelson’s “Luminous Zag: Night” from 1971 is large in scale and features the artist’s well-known painted wood objects, almost like a series of shelves in orderly disarray (or controlled disorderliness). Of the many works by Nevelson in collections and museums around the world, “Luminous Zag: Night” is one of the best.
Chryssa’s neon lights are a nice inclusion; they give off the impression of being unfinished (one piece is actually called “Fragmented Signature”), or maybe they are caught in time. Liubov Popova’s “Birsk” from 1916 features a series of interconnected shapes, obviously depicting a town of some kind, hidden somewhere within the abstraction and harsh lines of the painter.
Louise Bourgeois, not surprisingly, is also represented, and Holzer’s selections are interesting and diverse. There’s a fin-like sculpture called “Dagger” and a cocoon-like giant ornament called “Fée Couturière.” Another one, “Rabbit,” is somewhat scary, featuring an upside-down carcass, almost like a hanging vampire bat.
Sarah Charlesworth’s “Herald Tribune: November 1977” is always interesting to behold. Her deleted newspaper elements draw emphasis to what is left behind. Nan Goldin, such a powerful photographer, has a few prints in the curated selection, including “Trixie on the Cot” from 1979, featuring a central subject sitting on a bed, head turned, cigarette hanging out of the mouth.
Artistic License is a clever idea from the Guggenheim. Other museums have allowed guest artists to mine the collection and make interesting connections. It’s hard to see this special type of show going any better than the Guggenheim’s inaugural venture into this varied, comprehensive realm.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection continues through Jan. 12 at the Guggenheim on the Upper East Side of New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.
